A film about women and faith

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) will open this year’s festivities with worldwide favorite Lipstick Under My Burkha a film censored by the Indian Film censor board. Widely recognized as the premiere showcase of groundbreaking Indian cinema globally, the annual event will take place April 5-9, 2017 at Regal L.A. LIVE: A Barco Innovation Center in Los Angeles, California. This will be IFFLA’s first year in the state-of-the-art, world-class cinema in the heart of Los Angeles’ vibrant and developing downtown district.

“As India’s diverse array of talented filmmakers continues to be recognized around the world for their compelling and daring work, IFFLA is extremely proud to collect the best films from emerging voices and experienced masters and present them to Los Angeles,” said Mike Dougherty, Director of Programming.

Comprising an astute and impressive cast, LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA, is a vibrant film about women and faith. Premiering at the Tokyo Film Festival 2016 it has been lighting up the festival circuit, including just winning the Audience Award at the Glasgow Film Festival. Director Alankrita Shrivastava is confirmed to attend and additional talent to be confirmed.

The 15th edition of the IFFLA will close with the Los Angeles premiere of HOTEL SALVATION, the debut feature of Shubhashish Bhutiani, whose 2013 short film KUSH was shortlisted for the Live Action Short Film Oscar and won IFFLA’s 2014 Audience Award. HOTEL SALVATION premiered in the College Cinema section of the 2016 Venice Film Festival. The film’s star Adil Hussain (LIFE OF PI, UMRIKA, PARCHED) will attend IFFLA’s Closing Night gala representing the film.

This year the festival will feature two world premieres, five North American premieres, five U.S. premieres, and eleven LA premieres. This festival premieres work representing nine languages, and highlights a combination of exciting first and second-time filmmakers and experienced cinema masters returning with new work.

More films from first-time directors will be presented this year than ever before, including the directorial debut of beloved actress Konkona Sen Sharma with her film A DEATH IN THE GUNJ featuring an all-star cast of Gulshan Devaiah, Kalki Koechlin, Om Puri and Vikrant Massey in this dramatic thriller. Additionally first-time filmmaker Ananya Kasaravalli brings THE CHRONICLES OF HARI, a beautiful film about a renowned theater actor’s struggle with gender identity which she co-wrote with writer Gopalakrisna Pai and her father, acclaimed Kannada language director Girish Kasaravalli. Also first-time filmmaker Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy with A BILLION COLOUR STORY, which was included in Best of Fest in Palm Springs and recently played Busan and BFI London.

Also attending the festival this year to present their films will be a host of celebrated filmmakers, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan making the U.S. premiere of his twisted thriller ONCE AGAIN in Malayalam, and Suman Mukhopadhyay with the North American premiere of his gorgeous Bengali film INCOMPLETE.

IFFLA’s program features an impressive slate of award-winning and topical documentary films including MACHINES, winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Excellence in Cinematography at Sundance, and THE CINEMA TRAVELLERS directed by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya which won L’Œil d’or Special Mention: Le Prix du documentaire at the Cannes Film Festival.

The U.S. Premiere of the highly anticipated documentary AN INSIGNIFICANT MAN, directed by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla, will also take place at IFFLA. The film centers on the polarizing political figure Arvind Kejriwal (sometimes referred to as the Bernie Sanders of India) and gives a stirring behind-the-scenes look at his creation of the progressive Aam Aadmi Party and their historic campaign in the 2013 Delhi state elections.

IFFLA alum Rajshri Deshpande stars in the controversial SEXY DURGA directed by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, which recently won the coveted Hivor Tiger Award, the top prize at this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival.